 I'm not going to sit here and say there's no way she's going to get back to the press. I've seen amazing things happen. I've seen kids do that. I've seen kids who've never latched and one day they latch. And you're like, oh my god, right? So that... It's making me cry. I don't even, like, I don't even feel, you know. I saw those tears rolling. I know. Well, I was in your eyes. Well, I don't know why. It's okay. You know. Hi, lovers and friends. We are at the Kindred Space in LA to fix my boo problem. We're hoping to do that. So in essence, when Ziya was born, I was able to breastfeed and I produced a lot of milk. I started pumping right away. And even though we were breastfeeding a lot, I just noticed that it wasn't Ziya's favorite. Definitely wasn't mine because of the pain. And eventually, I mean, like two months later, Ziya just stopped latching altogether. And so I just went to pumping, which felt like the normal thing to do. And even though pumping was painful and I missed the breastfeeding element, because I produced a lot of milk, I just didn't feel like I had a problem. And recently, I'm coming up to my one year. Well, it's not my one year. It was Ziya's first birthday and I have the question of, am I going to continue to make milk or am I going to stop? And if I am honest, if I have to continue the way that I am pumping multiple times a day, with it still being something painful and kind of missing the bonding element, I just don't know if I have the stamina. So I came here to see if we can make our situation better. So it doesn't hurt to ask and that's what we're here to find out. So wish us luck. This video is sponsored by Squarespace, an amazing one-stop shop for entrepreneurs and creatives to get out what's in their brain out into the world in a beautiful, customizable, optimized, diverse way. So whether you need a website, you have a mailing list, you have an online store, you have a member's only community. Squarespace is an amazing tool that we have been using for the past five years of our business. We actually have to buy a domain through them for shared entertainment. So we change our emails, remind me. And if you are in the same boat and you're buying a domain or a website right now, you can get 10% off your purchase with Squarespace. When you go to squarespace.com slash Shan Booty, you can also get two weeks free, no credit cards required to play around, see if you like it. And if you like what you've made, go to squarespace.com slash Shan Booty, get the 10% off. Yeah, go get it. This is my first time somewhere like here, Kim. This is your first time somewhere like here? Yes, to the point that I don't even know what this is. Well, the kids call it the midwives house. Okay. When the little kids come they're like, we're at the midwives house. Sometimes the kids are like, can we stay here? And it's a birth center. It's a birth center. Kindred Space LA is a birth center. And where we are right now is our classroom. And so we do our birth classes in here or anything class-related or like group-related we do here. It's gorgeous. The whole space is gorgeous. And the energy is just perfect. My mom is a labor and delivery nurse. And so I've just always been familiar with just the hospital. And when I was giving birth, I guess I just never thought it was a thing. I was just like, ah, you go, you pop another baby. No, I know. I would just to come here because my experience was uneventful. I had a good birth because I had babies, but I don't have like warm feelings. I don't remember anybody's name. I have no idea who birthed my baby. So when you're going to the phase of, okay, now you have the baby. It's like, well, I don't, if I didn't have support then I don't really have a support system now. When I saw you speak, I thought, I wonder if it's too late to ask for the kind of help that you guys offer. And I reached out recently. That was months ago. It took me this long to even actually reach out and get that help because you feel like I can get by. I'm getting through. And when it comes to milk production, I produce. And so a lot of people will tell you, well, if you produce, that that's the end of the story. And the conversations around the fact that it's been uncomfortable for me, that I've had constant yeast infections on my nipples, and that I have a baby who won't latch anymore. I feel like those tend to feel like, well, you're producing, so that's fine. So everything gets dismissed. Yes. It's just a whole bunch of dismissal. Yes. I hear that. Or deep prioritization. Like, oh, well, and then especially now that she's coming up to a year, and that's where I guess I'm at really right now where, okay, well, I've made it through, you know, I do it six times a day. It hurts every single time. People who say, you're not supposed to feel anything. They don't feel what I do. And now I'm like, okay, am I going to continue on this way? Or am I going to stop because this is majorly inconvenient. I don't want to because I enjoy being able to feed my kids. And she's cool with milk. It's my two and a half year old number one customer. She loves my milk. Oh, awesome. Yeah, she could drink a day, night and evening. She prefers steak over breast milk, but I like steak too. I've been off of breast milk for a really long time. Yeah, awesome. I think day one, I was pumping in best breastfeeding at the exact same time. So first of all, who told you to start pumping immediately? I don't know if anybody told me to. I know no one told me not to. Yeah. First of all, back up before even the birth, I always want parents to take a prenatal breastfeeding or prenatal body feeding or prenatal lactation class. And why is because once you give birth, you're kind of on the job training. If you don't have any information prior to you're trying to figure it out in the moment. And that's where a lot of people kind of give up because it's just too hard unless it just works like that. You know, if you're having any hiccups, you know, you don't even have the knowledge beforehand to know like, Oh, like, this is a hiccup. I can get through this. I may need to call somebody. I might need to get more help, but I can get through this. So that's number one. And studies have shown for probably over 30, 40 years that education on breastfeeding in the prenatal period is the most effective. And it's one of the biggest ways we can help people be successful. One of my favorite videos from global health media is called self attachment. And it actually shows that our babies are born with the perfect reflexes to attach to the breast, just like any other mammal. So basically, if you get a newborn infant on your chest, skin to skin, which is still attached to the cord, ideally, they're going to come right on the chest within that first hour after birth, they're going to start searching around to attach to the breast. And all their newborn reflexes are designed for them to do that. You keep the umbilical cord on for an hour after they give birth? A longer than that most of the time. What? Yeah, it's called delay cord clamping and cutting, but out of hospital. So all the studies show that keeping the cord attached, not cutting it right away, put it to you this way. When you cut the cord immediately after birth, there's still about a third of your baby's blood volume left in your placenta. When the baby is on the body, eventually the first thing the baby will do after birth, their most important thing is to breathe in their lungs, through their lungs. So they're getting oxygenated blood through their cord prior to being born, and once they come out, they start using their lungs, right? They start crying, they start, they gas, they do different things to get their lungs to open, and the fluid gets pushed out, and they have to get their breathing together, and then they'll work on infant feeding, then they'll work on breastfeeding or lactation or body feeding. I'm calling it all those different names because some people don't identify with this part of their body as their breast. They prefer chest, so we have chest feeding, but lactation is kind of like a good catch-all, and it doesn't kind of like gender the experience. But now it's kind of like we're learning, you know, the way that it works a little bit in reverse, because as breastfeeding became like more understood to be an important factor in infant health and in maternal health as well, we kind of made it like, we kind of made it like you had to get real serious about it, right? Like you had to get the perfect chair, you got to get the perfect freaking pillow, you know, you got to get all the, buy all this stuff to make it work. You got to get the perfect pump to make breastfeeding work, and actually you don't need any of that stuff. And many times, here's the rub, those things get in the way of just normal breastfeeding. So for you, you started pumping right from the beginning, you know, you did not have to do that because your body is going to make milk simply because not just that your baby was born, but because your placenta came out. So what happens is when you're pregnant, your body starts making colostrum, which is the first milk for the baby, by the time you're 14, 13, 14 weeks pregnant. Most women don't even know that their body has that, has colostrum because it's not really a noticeable change in your breasts, but it's there. It's a part of pregnancy. Colostrum will get made whether you know it's there or not. And so with the education, I get to tell pregnant people that. And then their number one fear, will I make food for my baby immediately gets dispelled when I tell them in their pregnancy, you already have it in your breast right now. You don't even know it, but it's there. What I liked about pumping, what I like, I'm kind of on the fence for the idea of it. If I would not allow it is one to not feel like it was me alone. So there was a bottle opportunity for somebody else and for the father to bond or anybody who else is in the house. And two, I travel a bit for work. So I knew I would have enough milk in the freezer for her, if I ever left. And I had enough milk for my other baby too. So there was like positives to it. But I'm not saying that pumping is like the devil or that you shouldn't have done it. But I'm saying that when you start, what I want to set up for you is that your body is made to produce. When you give birth, right, you already have the colostrum in your breasts. Great. You give birth and then you birth your placenta. And then that changes your hormones. The placenta being born tells your body, we can make that breast milk now. But it's going to take a couple of days for it to come in, right? And that's fine. And then all the while your baby ideally is nursing frequently. And then when the mature milk comes in day two, day three, day four, they get the mature milk. And then your body regulates the amount of milk your breasts are going to make based on how much your infant is nursing. So whether it's through a pump or through a baby or both, your supply is going to get based off of how much you're like demanding the milk, you're taking the milk out. So because you were taking out milk and also feeding your baby, your body regulated to making enough milk for two babies, essentially. So even though that sounds wonderful, it can also be a problem. Okay, hold it real quick. I know you guys have been watching this for a second, but I got to say we got to give a shout out to the sponsor of this video, Squarespace. Now we have been partnering with Squarespace for a couple of years, using them for double that time. Now they have got some new features that I want to tell you about, Jared. Tell me. The Fluid Engine. The Fluid Engine is a next generation website designed system from Squarespace. It has never been easier for anyone to unlock unbreakable creativity, drag and drop customizable fluid design. Let's go. Flexible website templates. We know about that. Custom merch. So it's a place that people have gone to sell their stuff forever. Now you can get custom merch there. Good to know. Good to know. Easily sell your custom merch and create a passive income stream that engages your audience and scales your brand. Design your products and production, inventory, shipping all handled for you, saving you time, money and effort. You can also do appointments now, which I actually had a system. This is all I'm reading this for the first time. I need this. I didn't know about these features. So they now have appointments. So accept appointments on your Squarespace website. I have a third party system that I pay to use. Canceling that subscription right after we do this. Go to Squarespace and do that there. They offer online or in person private sessions that people can schedule right there with you. Workshops, group classes, so much more. I got to read the rest of this. So yeah, y'all go to Squarespace too to find out how they can change your life. They just changed mine in this ad read. Yeah, Squarespace is the next thing or the thing. The thing. It's our thing. Yes. It could be their thing too. All they got to do is go to Squarespace.com slash Shambudy, get 10% off the purchase of a website or domain. Say one more time, babe. Go to Squarespace.com slash Shambudy to get 10% off of website or a domain. The reason why she stopped latching is the flow was aggressive. Exactly. Can we talk about that? Yes. Yeah. So again, a lot of people struggle and worry about not having enough milk, enough, you know, human milk for their babies. But and they think like, wow, if you have too much, that's great. Or, you know, and like you said, people will kind of dismiss you and say, well, you have a lot of milk, so that shouldn't be a problem or why are you concerned? But having oversupply can cause a lot of problems like a baby's not wanting to latch. Like it's uncomfortable. Yeah. If I was to take a like, you know, I refer it to it like, um, what's that like a beer ball? I've never done one, but I really do want to do one, but I've never done one. And it's like, don't they like kind of pour the beer down your throat and you're just like, right? Yeah. That's how it goes. Yes. That's how it is when she's nursing on breasts then or have like too much milk. Yes. And so like, could you do a beer bong every time you wanted to have some something to drink? Would you want to do it that way? No. It's not comfortable. It's not normal. Right. And so she was very smart. She protected herself by saying like, that doesn't work for me. You're going to have to give it to me another way. So with because of the oversupply, she was getting kind of like overwhelmed with the milk. It could be the flow. It flow can be overwhelming. It can cause coughing, choking, spitting, sputtering, vomiting. Um, and it's just really uncomfortable and babies are really smart. Like they're not going to pump it to come out like that fast. No, you, you have oversupply. So if you're making more milk than, you know, you kind of need, then it's just, you just have a lot. So it's just, it's just coming out fast. Also, um, second baby, right? So sometimes I would like to say most of the time our breasts get more efficient each baby we have. So maybe you didn't have the fast flow with the first baby, but second baby comes along and you're pumping. Your body's like, I know how to do this. I know how to make milk. I know how to like get it out. And it's just doing it, you know, you know, I refer to it as like a circus sprinkler. When the milk comes down, yeah, and it's only going to last for a minute. And then it comes into a more steady flow. But if you first latch, it's a little bit dry. And then once that milk comes in, this was like pow, and they're out of multiple different directions. And so she'd pop off and then it would start spraying her in the face like this. Then she'd start crying and then I'd have to try to soothe her to get her to come back on the breast to trust it again. And we had an experience in the airport. And that was just the day that she said, I don't ever want to see these kids again. Yeah, she meant it. She meant it. She meant it. No, they were being ridiculous. You know what I'm saying? It was like too much going on. It's okay. It's okay. It was a lot. If you got this. You got this. So yeah, I mean, you know, another way sometimes that can happen, sometimes people without the extra pumping can just have oversupply or they can have what we call like a forceful let down or forceful milk ejection reflex. And but at the end of the day, one of the things I would have done with you is just had you do different positions. Well, first of all, I would have you calm down on the pumping. I'd have you kind of tamp down like it wouldn't be like I wouldn't even want you to go cold turkey on the pumping because that could cause mastitis, plugged up. Yes, all that kind of stuff, right? I had right in X was wasn't I guess they said a mastitis, but for the first month or two months of breastfeeding, if I missed a pumping session, I would get a lump in a fever. Oh yeah. Well, that's called mastitis. And you can manage it typically without taking like antibiotics or something. But yeah, that's that's what you had. Is it too late for me? Well, too late for what? What are you asking? Is it too late to have a pain free experience that includes her breastfeeding? I don't know the answer. But what I would say is some of the ways that you can kind of encourage her is you can one of the should I let it go? Was it a narcissistic thing to even want just to have her suckle on your breast as opposed to giving it to her? I think there's a bit of like one just for sustainability, because maybe I wouldn't do it as much. You just be you know, when on occasion when she wanted after a year, and two, I wouldn't have to lug around my bag of pumps all the time. Which would be nice on occasion if we're just going somewhere quick that I wouldn't feel like if I forget my pumps, my baby has nothing to eat. Yeah. But I also yeah, I think selfishly I do just desire that feeling and knowing I'm never having another baby again. I'm just like, I don't believe that. But anyway, go ahead. Well, he had a sex with a shower. They don't always work, which means you're probably having more sex. So I'm just saying. We're pretty certain that it's not it's not coming back around. Well, I mean, that's the hard part. It's like you've kind of made a finish line or you've kind of like this is kind of like a finite experience that you guys have decided. So now of course, you're having like, you're kind of trying to like, well, let me see if I can get back some of the things that I didn't get and that I wanted to have before I could say that I was kind of like done. Yeah. Yeah. So so I think that honestly that that's something that you just want to reconcile with yourself. And I think over time, you'll know the answer. You may not know it now if you should give up or if you should stick it out. But what I can say is some of the things that I would do to encourage her to get on the breast is I would try when she's not awake, when she's sleepy or sleeping or going to sleep. I would try when she is another great place to try is just taking a bath with her and just having the your breast, obviously you're in the bath exposed as she's in the bath. And there's something I don't know what happens in the water. Sometimes it's almost like a rebirth. And you guys can just be in the water together and sometimes babies will latch, you know, in the bath. I mean, that's one of the things that I really encourage people to do if they really have a baby that's having a hard time latching is kind of just let's just go let's go into the water together and let's just kind of see what happens. And sometimes magical things happens like that. I think that I think that I don't think it's narcissistic for you to want to try because it's not anything that's hurting her. But I think it's difficult when you have a baby that is not interested in latching, because if you're trying to force them to latch, that doesn't feel good. Right. And so one of the things you can think of is and I'm just going to say this and I don't want it to discourage you. But one of the things people say is as many as long a time has gone for the baby not latching is about how long it will take to get them to latch. So that's been about six months. So and then also it's stages. So one, you know, she has to be comfortable being at your breast before she's going to latch on it. So if she's already like looking at your breast and like, Oh, no, just like get those things away for me. Then we have she has to get to the place where she can just feel comfortable being right here. She can be there. It's literally as soon as they come out. Like if even if I just have her here, she's it's but I also know a shoe and we talk about this how he will say like I miss your breasts because I have to wear a bra at all times. My nipples are so sensitive. And my mom was even saying was a part of it too is that when she was breastfeeding, I would be bracing myself for the pain. So she would feel my body tense up. Right. So that's like I have to wear bras all the time. And if I do go in the bath with them after wear swimsuits, because if they rub or touch my nipples at all, it's so painful. Well, that I think we have to understand that whatever is going on, that's not normal. When you're pumping and you have like and had an ongoing use situation, honestly, like you should be replacing your pump parts frequently, meaning the stuff that's touching your breasts, be replaced like every week. And every week you should get new anything that touches your breast should be replaced. You should also really wash it because it's not going to get rid of you're reinfecting yourself. So the yeast can live on those parts. And then when you use it again, you're just you're not you're just kind of aggravating the situation. So you can sterilize the pump parts only the parts that touch your breasts. I'm talking about sterilize them like once a day. That's recommended to get rid of it. And once we change them out. So another thing is if you have, let's say you are nursing, you are putting the baby to the breast. If you have thrush, we have to treat the baby too. We have to treat the inside of their mouth. There's different ways we can do that. Often you can get a medication from a pediatrician, but there's I have other little tips and tricks that we do to to get the baby treated as well. So that's why sometimes it just never goes away. Because people don't have all the information they need to let it help it go away. And it kind of keep moms and babies can keep reinfecting each other. You know, I think that's a terrible and then your pump parts can get gnarly. This is why people quit. This is why people quit. And this is also why there are people like me who are lactation consultants who like just love this. And we like it kind of feels like detective work when we're doing it. Because you kind of have to that's cute. You kind of have to like you have to like get the whole story and put all the pieces together to figure out how people got to where they are. Yeah. So, you know, if anyone in your audience is having issues, concerns, troubles, you know, they should reach out to a lactation professional. And I mean, it's fine to like talk to your mom or talk to your sister or people who have breastfed. But oftentimes you need somebody who like this is what they do for a living. Because it's not everybody's experience is the same. And we have like a tons of information like too much, too much information. Yeah. And I think to your point is like, did I have somebody teach me the football hold and the cradle? Yes. Did she latch in the hospital? Yes. Did she have enough milk? Yes. But that wasn't the end of my story. Exactly. And it's kind of whittled down to all the only those things. And what's interesting is that, you know, things change. I mean, for however long you choose to do this, there's going to be different challenges and new experiences throughout the whole breastfeeding journey. So it's great to have people that can check in with you at wherever you're at in your journey. It's very hard not to look at your baby. She's so cute. Yes, I'm talking about you. I'm talking about you. You're very entertaining. But at the end of the day, I think if you're, you know, I think to your point that sometimes there is a time period where you might want something a little bit more than your daughter does, because if you look at her, she's great. She's fine. She don't care if she latches on to a boob. She don't care. She's happy. She's living her best life. And I think that if, you know, whatever you decide, I want you to also give yourself space for potentially not meeting that goal, right? Like, give yourself space for potentially not meeting a goal that you wanted to meet and give yourself space for the grieving that might come along with that, right? Yeah. Because if you decide like one, you don't have to decide anything right now. You can do whatever you want. You can try. You can do all the things. And there is, I'm not going to sit here and say there's no way she's going to get back to the breast. I've seen amazing things happen. I've seen kids do that. I've seen kids who've never latched and one day they latch and you're like, oh my God, right? So that is making me cry. I don't even like, I don't even feel, you know, I saw those tears rolling. I know. I was like, why? It's okay. You know, she's just misty in here. A little humid in here. For some face humidity. Yeah, that part. I mean, that's exactly what I mean. Like, and maybe, maybe it will be helpful if you just say, like, come to some sort of peace with it, even before you make a decision if you're going to try again or not, right? Like, I, that's so much a part of mothering, so much a part of parenting. It's just like, there's so many things we have to make peace with. There's so many things that we have regrets. We have things that we wish had gone one way, but they actually went another way, you know, and then how do you kind of keep living? How do you keep kind of taking care of yourself and your family? So I will also say that you're not alone. Well, you have been incredible and obviously a well of information and you suggest that people go to see a lactation expert and call them. Some people get the benefit of actually getting to call you or getting to come to this space. How can people engage with the kindred space? I think the main thing is like you can always go, people can go to like our website and if they want to contact us, there's a way that they can send an email. If they want to come here to give birth, we have virtual interviews that we do every week and so they can sign up for that free of charge. They'll get a whole rundown of how our space works and if they're eligible and things like that. And then if they want to move forward, then we end up making like individual virtual interviews with either myself or Allegra, like the co-owner and co-founder of Kindred Space LA. I've been working in lactation for 32 years and I really do love it. I love nursing all my kids for a long time. I mean it wasn't always like super fun, but I appreciate that relationship. So I would say that my biggest advice would be you can reach out to Kindred Space LA. Absolutely. We'll get you in touch with the right people. But also find a good lactation consultant if you're having problems, if we're not in your area. Yes, there's virtual visits. Those are great. You can find a good lactation consultant by going to ilka.org. So it's I-L-C-A dot O-R-G. And they actually have a like a feature where you can find a lactation consultant in your area. And I would definitely recommend that as well. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Ziya. You did it.